Source: www.worthpoint.com License: All Rights Reserved.

In the six decades since the publication of the original Dune novel in 1965, the science fiction franchise has gone through many different typographic identities. Notable examples include the use of Giorgio for the British paperbacks by NEL (c. 1968) and Albertus for David Lynch’s movie adaptation (1984). But another typeface has even stronger ties to Dune and its author. It appeared on the covers of dozens of books, including the classic Dune trilogy and its sequels, and also on other titles by – or about – Frank Herbert, from various imprints. Strangely enough, the name of this typeface is barely known even among die-hard fans.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Dune (1965) and Dune Messiah (1969) as published by Berkley Medallion in September 1975. Cover art by Vincent Di Fate. [More info on ISFDB about Dune and Dune Messiah]

Davison Art Nouveau was drawn by lettering artist Meyer M. “Dave” Davison for Photo-Lettering (PLINC), a typesetting company in New York City. It was first shown in PLINC’s 1967 Alphabet Yearbook. Basically a bold all-caps roman with long bracketed serifs, Davison Art Nouveau comes in three variants of increasing ornamentation: Art Nouveau with Flourishes, Modified, and Ornate.

Scan courtesy of Michael Babcock. License: All Rights Reserved.

One-line samples for the three variants of Davison Art Nouveau, compiled from a page in PLINC’s Alphabet Yearbook 1967

Each variant includes additional alternates, some of which sport swashes, fox tail extensions, and curlicues that reach above and below the line. Depending on which glyphs are selected, the look of words set in Davison Art Nouveau ranges from sober to discreetly flowery to full-blown carnivalesque. That’s one reason this face isn’t easy to track down – it can take on so many different appearances. The other reason is that it was exclusive to PLINC. And PLINC was a service provider, not a font retailer. You couldn’t buy or license a copy of Art Nouveau. If you wanted to have some text set in this font, you had to place an order at their Manhattan office at 216 East 45th Street, in person or by phone or post.

Source: www.abebooks.com Burnside Rare Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

Children of Dune, first edition by Berkley Putnam, 1976. Cover art by Vincent Di Fate. [More info on ISFDB] The secondary typeface here is Columna Solid with its alternate long-legged R.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by pulpcrush. License: All Rights Reserved.

Children of Dune (1976). Berkley Medallion, 1977. Cover art by Vincent Di Fate. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.abebooks.com Shoestring Collectibooks. License: All Rights Reserved.

A later printing of Children of Dune by Berkley, 1984. Instead of golden embossed letters, it features plain beige ones.

Source: www.etsy.com Recent Era. License: All Rights Reserved.

Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune, in undated paperback editions by Ace and Berkley Medallion

The liaison between Dune and Davison Art Nouveau started in September 1975, when the typeface was used by Berkley Medallion for a paperback edition of the first two novels. At the time, the Berkley imprint was owned by New York-based publisher G.P. Putnam’s Sons. When Berkley Putnam published the first hardcover edition of the third novel, Children of Dune, in 1976, the new typographic identity was applied there, too. Later on, Putnam used the typeface on the jackets for hardback editions of other, unrelated books authored (or coauthored) by Frank Herbert.

After Berkley acquired Ace Books in 1982, Ace took over as Putnam’s publisher for science fiction paperbacks. During this period, some of Herbert’s books also appeared under the Del Rey imprint. Despite the change in imprints, though, the link between Herbert and Art Nouveau lasted – that is, until around 1988. Such “author branding” was rather common, especially with science fiction and fantasy writers. Other examples on Fonts In Use include Roslyn Gothic for Philip K. Dick, Dynamo and Corporate for Arthur C. Clarke, and Pipeline for Robert Heinlein.

The uncredited typographer worked with the Modified variant – at least that’s what the A with curved bar and the E with curling middle bar shown in the limited typeface samples I’ve been able to compare suggest. The letterforms were used with varying degrees of condensation, something that was easily done with phototype. Given that Art Nouveau came with so many alternates, its use for Dune and beyond is impressively consistent. Across the dozens of applications, only a handful of variant glyphs were employed: see for example the two forms for A, one of them with a right stem that curves inward; the R with the curling terminal for “Trilogy” versus the one in “Frank Herbert” on the box set below; or the S with and without ball terminal at the top.

Right from the start, Friz Quadrata was introduced as the supporting typeface, a choice that was maintained for most of the following books.

This post showcases a considerable number of book covers and jackets featuring Art Nouveau, more or less in chronological order, without aiming for completeness. The credit for selecting Art Nouveau probably goes to an unknown art director working at the Berkley Publishing Corporation. My research didn’t turn up any names. If you have any additional insight, please leave a comment.

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Dune Trilogy: The first three books were also issued in a boxed set by Berkley Medallion, 1977. [More info on ISFDB] “The complete” is added in caps from Futura.

Source: sparrowsbookshop.com Sparrow’s Bookshop (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

The Worlds of Frank Herbert (1970), Berkley Medallion, 1977. Cover art by Paul Alexander. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Boy de Haas. License: All Rights Reserved.

Whipping Star (1970), Berkley Medaillon, 1977. Cover art by Paul Alexander. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: biblio.sg Lost Paddle Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

The typographic identity extended to items other than books, too. Frank Herbert’s Dune Calendar 1978 was published by Berkley in 1977, with illustrations by John Schoenherr.

Source: poshmark.com nickycnj. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Dune Calendar 1978 doesn’t only offer stunning art …

Source: poshmark.com nickycnj. License: All Rights Reserved.

… it’s also a great resource if you’re looking for a complete set of numerals from Davison Art Nouveau.

Source: www.etsy.com JackiesJewelryBooks. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Illustrated Dune, illustrated by John Schoenherr, Berkley Windover, August 1978

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Cadwalader Ringgold. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Dosadi Experiment (1977), Berkley, 1978. Cover art by Paul Alexander. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by admiral.ironbombs. License: CC BY-SA.

Destination: Void (1966), Berkley, Dec. 1978. Cover art by Paul Alexander. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Chad. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Jesus Incident (1979) by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom, Berkley, 1980. Cover art by Paul Alexander. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.abebooks.com Comic World. License: All Rights Reserved.

Soul Catcher (1972), Berkley, 1979 (this printing from 1985). Cover art by Wayne Barlowe. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Boy de Haas. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Godmakers (1972), Berkley, 1981. Cover art by Paul Alexander. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.antiqbook.com RareBookCellar.com. License: All Rights Reserved.

God Emperor of Dune, first US edition by Putnam, 1981. Cover art by Brad Holland. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Boy de Haas. License: All Rights Reserved.

God Emperor of Dune, Berkley, Sep. 1981. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

The Book of Frank Herbert (1973), Berkley, 1981. Cover art by Vincent Di Fate. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.etsy.com MadisonPaperback (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Under Pressure, originally titled The Dragon in the Sea (1956), Del Rey / Ballantine, 1981. Cover art by David B. Mattingly. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.etsy.com TheCloudyLion (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

The Heaven Makers (1968), Del Rey / Ballantine, 1982. Cover art by Darrell K. Sweet [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.abebooks.com Evening Star Books. License: All Rights Reserved.

The White Plague, first edition by Putnam, 1982. Cover art by Abe Echevarria. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.abebooks.com Sierra Sales. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Lazarus Effect by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom, first edition by Putnam, 1983. Cover art by Abe Echevarria. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.reddit.com CeeNain (digital recreation of the original cover). License: All Rights Reserved.

The Dune Encyclopedia by Willis Everett McNelly (ed.), a collection of essays written as a companion to the Dune series, first edition by Berkley, 1984. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Drümmkopf. License: CC BY.

Chapterhouse: Dune, first edition by Putnam, April 1985. Cover art by John Schoenherr. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Drümmkopf. License: CC BY.

Heretics of Dune (1984), Berkley, April 1986. Cover art by John Schoenherr. A similar edition was published by Ace in 1987. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by  livredesombres. License: All Rights Reserved.

God Emperor of Dune (1981, see above), Ace, June 1987. Cover art by Vincent Di Fate. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr byJim Linwood. License: CC BY.

Frank Herbert: The Maker Of Dune, edited by Tim O’Reilly, Berkley, 1987. [More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.abebooks.com Rare Book Cellar. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Ascension Factor by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom, first edition by Putnam, 1988. Cover art by Ron Miller. [More info on ISFDB]

Davison Art Nouveau in the digital age

Photo-Lettering, Inc. didn’t make the transition to digital typesetting and went out of business in 1997. Davison Art Nouveau disappeared together with the company and thousands of other alphabet designs. In 2003, House Industries purchased the assets. The Delaware design studio partnered with Erik van Blokland and Christian Schwartz and started digitizing a number of typefaces by PLINC, with the help of friends and colleagues. These were initially made available in 2009 via a special web service that replicated the exclusive PLINC experience for the digital age. House Industries later switched to offering them for conventional licensing. At the time of writing, Davison Art Nouveau is not among the digitized designs.

In 2009, a Dune aficionado who goes by the moniker DuneFish (DFUK) and/or MEP made a digital font called Orthodox Herbertarian, “painstakingly traced from scans of the typeface that was used on the American Ace editions […] of Dune and many other Frank Herbert books”. This amateur digitization is freely available at kullwahad.com. The font is caps only (A–Z), with a basic set of punctuation characters and scaled-down caps in the lowercase. Because it’s based on the book covers (as opposed to the original typeface), it naturally adopts the narrowed proportions. Orthodox Herbertarian is a laudable effort, but it doesn’t include any of the alternates or the numerals. In 2020, Reddit user purgruv added lowercase letters and numerals to this freebie and offered it for download as Extended Herbertarian. The additions aren’t faithful to the original and unfortunately aren’t well drawn, either.

Orthodox Herbertarian arguably covers the needs of most Dune fans. Nevertheless, I hope to see a professional, fully featured digitization of Davison Art Nouveau one day.

Photo: Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

The original Davison Art Nouveau in three variants (line 1–3) with some – but not all – of its alternates, compared to the digital Orthodox Herbertarian (line 4). As a basic caps-plus-small-caps font without any extras, the freebie can do only so much. It is a decent option if you want to quickly emulate Dune’s typographic style, though.

Thanks to B., G., and Justin Hoggard, who all suggested I write an article about this use; and to Caren Litherland for the valuable edits. Kudos to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which helped a lot in identifying and dating the numerous editions and printings.

Designed by Jamie Stark as promotional material for Dune (2021), this beautifully-gilded poster features what might be the most famous quote from the Frank Herbert's Dune in all-caps Minion:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

“DUNE” is the official title treatment created by Legendary, in custom letterforms which are called Dune Font in some places, and are considered to be Canadian aboriginal symbols in others. The title is itself an ambigram, reading the same turned upside down.

The font has been replicated by fan designers as Dune Rise.

When announcing the cast of Dune (2021), Warner Bros. released this poster series highlighting the film’s star-studded cast.

Character names are highlighted in Linotype Didot, and actors’ names are in Futura. Type is very loosely letterspaced across the actors’ faces.

Source: www.openculture.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Possibly one of the strangest aspects of David Lynch’s 1984 Dune was the promotional memorabilia associated with it. The production studio behind the film seemed unsure whether to target Dune as a darker film for an older audience, or as their own attempt at a family focused Star Wars saga. Enter the Dune Coloring & Activity Books, written by Arlene Block and illustrated by Michael Nicastre.

The cover of the coloring book features 1984 Dune’s Albertus logo with a modified U. The subtitle is in all-caps ITC Isbell.

Juxtaposing lines of Melior typical to children’s coloring books with strange illustrations of scenes from Lynch's films, the coloring book breaches the absurd.

Even more absurd is the activity book pages, featuring type with psychedelic appearing illustrations and blue text. One section features a Dune themed recipe.

See more images from the books on the Coilhouse blog. A digitized copy of the Coloring Book is available at the Internet Archive.

Source: www.openculture.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.openculture.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.openculture.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: coilhouse.net License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: coilhouse.net License: All Rights Reserved.

The bestselling science fiction novel – now a movie beyond your imagination

Movie tie-in edition of Frank Herbert’s Dune, published by Berkley Books in May 1984. The typography with widely tracked caps from Albertus follows the visual identity of the 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch. As Toshi points out, some details were customized. Most notably, the U lost its stem. Furthermore, and unlike in the three-dimensional version see in the titles, the E in the logo was made wider, and its middle bar flares to both sides. You can see the original Albertus E in the author’s name below.

The art re-uses a poster for the 1984 film and is credited to Dino de Laurentis Corporation.

[More info on ISFDB]

Special ABA Limited Edition

Title page of a signed copy

Albertus finds itself in another sci-fi cult classic. The opening credit is done in golden 3D lettering, with some modification to the letterform: U has no bottom-right stem, R tail is longer than usual, ampersand uses the alternate form, and J is a non-descending alternate which was originally a standard variant when the typeface was released. According to the ending credits, Robert Schaefer and the company called Title House are responsible for the work.

After the opening exposition and credit, the second exposition starts (this film has a lot of background exposition, which is still not enough to fully make sense of itself, and often the main point of its criticism). The planet names are typeset in ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

Small caps are simply scaled caps with no weight adjustment.

The ending credit is set in Helvetica.

An omnibus edition of the first three novels in the Dune series; Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune, pubished in 1979 by Book Club Associates by arrangement with Gollancz. The wraparound illustration is by Welsh artist Terry Oakes. Edwards (1895) is used for the jacket typography.

Denis Villenueve’s 2021 Dune film has resurged interest into the famously difficult to adapt sci-fi book franchise Dune by Frank Herbert. One of the earliest attempts to create a Dune film was by cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky, who spent three years attempting to develop a Dune film, and was unable to due to ever-growing budgetary needs. Jodorowsky’s Dune is often considered the “the greatest movie that was never made”, and a glimpse into that what could have been can be seen in his Dune storyboard.

Artwork and design for the book was done by Jean Giraud, a French artist better known as Moebius. The cover aligns Futura with a colorful ship mid-space – It’s Guild Tug by Chris Foss. The title page of the storyboard features all-lowercase Eurostile Bold Extended, tightly spaced, with “DUNE” in Franklin Gothic Condensed. Artist pages lack typography, but character designs are in a Clarendon. The bilingual captions seem to be written on an IBM typewriter using Orator. Last but not least, running titles were added in Herkules.

The storyboard copy shown here recently sold for $3 million to a cryptocurrency collaborative.

Like on the cover, Jodorowsky’s first name is misspelled as Alexandro.

The captions are typed in IBM’s Orator, in caps and small caps.

Around 1986, Italian publisher Euroclub issued translations of Frank Herbert’s Dune books. The series spanned at least six volumes: Dune, Messia di Dune, I figli di Dune, L’imperatore-dio di Dune, Gli eretici di Dune, and La rifondazione di Dune.

The typography on the colorful dust jackets features two styles from Hiroshi Yamashita’s Alpha series: Alpha Midnight (solid) and Alpha Twilight (contour).

The first UK edition of the fifth Dune novel was published by Gollancz in March 1984, with art by Jim Burns.

[Edit: scratch all of what I wrote below – it’s Tribune a.k.a. Triplett, see the comments.]

The typeface is Friz Quadrata Bold, Victor Caruso’s addition for ITC to the original VGC design by Ernst Friz. It’s here used in redrawn form, with small caps and EndcapS, an added contour, and some modifications to the letterforms: arms in E and F were elongated, the lower part of C was shortened, N got a flat base at the bottom right, A lost its top spur, and the top terminal of S is angled in the other direction. This rendition eliminates some of the idiosyncracies, making it more robust.

[More info on ISFDB]

Glyph set of Friz Quadrata Bold as shown in U&lc, vol. 1, no. 1, 1973

Ace, 1967. Title and author are in Benguiat Zenedipity, condensed and obliqued, nicely echoing the slant of the rock in John Schoenherr’s cover art. The text in the starburst uses caps from Lydian Italic. [More info on ISFDB]

Benguiat Zenedipity is used for the covers of two paperback editions of Frank Herbert’s Dune, published by Ace Books in c. 1967 and 1974.

The Western-style slab serif with flared bottom halves was drawn by Ed Benguiat for Photo-Lettering, apparently as spinoff of Benguiat Serendipity, which is a more conventional Barnum (with Benguiat Buffalo being a rounded version). The all-caps Zenedipity is shown in PLINC’s Alphabet Thesaurus, Vol. 2 (1965) in two widths. A third Wide style is initially listed as exclusive design. It’s shown in Vol. 3 (1971). I’m not aware of a digitization.

A later Ace edition from 1974, with cover art by Don Ivan Punchatz, again with Zenedipity. Secondary bits are set in italic caps from ITC Souvenir, another design by Ed Benguiat. [More info on ISFDB]

Late ’70s, early ’80s covers for Frank Herbert's Dune series. Cover art by Bruce Pennington. Books published by New English Library Books.

There are a ton of different editions of the Dune series, as you can see on arrakis.co.uk. I really like the Hebrew and Brazilian editions, but my favorites are four UK covers illustrated by Bruce Pennington.

The titles of the books are set in Giorgio. Giorgio is like a psychedelic slab serif. The tagline text has been set in Monotype Grotesque.

Collage with dozens of different versions of Dune. The type has been set in so many different ways. Titles can be seen set in a yet unidentified typeface (or is it lettering?) digitized as Orthodox Herbertarian, Desdemona aka Quaint, Revue, Rubens, Plantin, Alpha Midnight, Avant Garde Gothic, Kabel Black, Albertus, Engravers, Trajan, Techno and many more.